In a telecommunications network, mobile devices may communicate wirelessly with network nodes such as towers, base transmitters, base receivers, base stations, and/or base transceivers. Each network node may serve one or more cells. Each cell or network node may be associated with a different operating frequency. A mobile device is considered to be communicating in a cell or with a network node when the radio and/or antenna in the mobile device is tuned to communicate over the operating frequency associated with the cell or network node. Some mobile devices may include radios and/or antennas that allow the mobile device to communicate over multiple cells or network nodes.
In some instances, the mobile device may perform a radio operation that may cause the mobile device to fail to receive packets from the network. For example, a mobile device may be communicating with a first network node when the mobile device determines that it should measure the signal strength between the mobile device and a second network node. In order to measure the strength of that signal, the mobile device would retune its radio to communicate over the frequency associated with the second network node. During the time that the mobile device retunes its radio and/or measures the signal strength, the mobile device may fail to receive packets sent by the first network node. As another example when the mobile device is capable of communicating over multiple cells, the mobile device may activate and/or deactivate its connection to one or more cells. The mobile device may retune its radio to activate and/or deactivate these connections. During the time that the mobile device retunes its radio, the mobile device may fail to receive packets sent through another active cell. Maintaining good signal quality between the wireless device and the radio network node may allow for good performance, such as high bitrate transmissions or robust control channel performance. However, it may be difficult to maintain good signal quality in complex radio environments.